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A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

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101–110 of 158 posts

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why not include high school? Unless the degree was exclusive to medicine, including it is bullshit. MDs have a glorified 4 year masters and an on the job training program not significantly different than what it takes to become a PE.

what's PE?

Professional Engineer

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#102
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they don't want to have a way to ask a question, they shouldn't have one. The assistant who answers questions has literally never provided value. She is just wasting her time, and mine. I would actually prefer if they didn't pretend you could get useful info through the "ask a non-emergency medical question" option. And as tssva said, these questions are often follow-ups on topics discussed at an appointment, so i…

They are willing to answer some questions, I.e. the ones a nurse or medical assistant can answer; it’s the medical questions that only a provider can answer that they need to be able to bill for.

IME they are roughly as useful as Google, but with much greater latency. They are also wrong not-infrequently, either because they misunderstood the question, or because they gave an incorrect response.

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#103
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anatomy and many other highly relevant undergraduate courses in biology and chemistry are mandatory for the postgraduate degrees.

I think the standard pre-reqs in the US are two semesters of biology, math, and physics, four of chemistry (general and organic). I doubt that any of this is directly relevant to patient care and honestly, I’m skeptical that it’s either necessary or sufficient background for the stuff that is.

I wouldn't trust any MD that couldn't manage a C- in all of those subjects.

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#104
Perhaps I’m just getting crap doctors but I’ve had so many bad experiences even with specialists that it seems nearly impossible to get help with anything past super basic issues. Over a year ago I had a dive related injury to my ear and I can’t get any help past “everything looks great” from any ENT. For context I can barely stand to be in many social situations without earplugs in one ear because I’m hearing some frequencies extremely loud and distorted and in my head instead of from their source.

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which given the 8-10 year pipeline to become a physician, means we have yet to see the effects. It will take years more.

It doesn’t help that doctors and other healthcare professionals are leaving because of burnout. It will only get worse in my opinion. “Warning signs for the U.S. health system are piling up” “Nearly half of practicing U.S. physicians are older than 55” https://www.axios.com/2023/10/26/health-care-doctor-shortage...

Considering 30 is pretty much the lower bound for becoming a physician, that stat sounds a little bit like "40% of employee absences happen on Mondays and Fridays". Alarmist and of zero value.

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#106
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ive had chronic health issues for 3 years now without much relief, despite having been to the doctors office 20+ in that time. This is the problem with all of these systems that try to violate the laws of physics (aka: free market economics). They invariably results in substandard care, if you receive care at all. Keeping people alive isn't the same thing as actually solving problems with quality care. This is my b…

Your per person figures seem low to me, and you're calling it profitability but then taking expenses out of that. Is that an industry term? Where does that number come from? I would think at least before expenses it would be quite high as medical visits cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

This person has an argument but confuses so many basic terms that it gets lost. Revenues are not profits and profits don't include expenses. I'd be happy to read a cleaned up version but right now it's just a confusing mess.

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, a lot of what I do doesn't require 12 years of training What, besides surgery, really requires 12 years of training? I've found I have a greater success rate with self diagnosis and treatment than I have with seeing my physician, and I've found a very good internist. An hour spent with ChatGPT and Google and I always find a couple options that fit what I'm experiencing as well as detailed descrip…

A recent occurrence I will share related to this was having to convince my doctor that I had Lyme disease. I Googled the symptoms, saw the trademark bullseye, and of course concluded that I had Lyme disease. It was right where I got the tick bite, 8 weeks later. My doctor refused to believe me. He told me to see a dermatologist about it, thinking it was some skin rash, even though it was exactly where the tick had bi…

You have a point but need to drop the identity politics bullshit. Since when are women "underserved"? Men are far more likely to "tough it out" i.e. refuse to see a doctor when they have symptoms of illness, so by your logic they are the "underserved minority" in terms of gender. Claiming women are disadvantaged in literally everything ever is a groundless cliché. The racial angle may be less false (though not for the reasons you imply) but is still irrelevant to this story.

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#108

If you go to urgent care, you most likely won't get a physician. 9/10 visits are urgent care you only see a PA or NP and they can't even really do much. Urgent care seems to also provide really poor results--every time I've gone it's a long wait, the workers seem over-stressed, you barely get any time with the doctor, and usually they just do a strep test or give you a Zithromax pack and hope you'll go away.

> If you go to urgent care, you most likely won't get a physician. Not my experience. Every time I've gone to urgent care I am always seen by a MD.

You are very lucky. I don't think my urgent care even has an MD in the building anymore. Anything more than a cold or obvious case gets a "nothing we can do" and follow-up with your doctor. Anything mysterious but potentially severe gets you referred to the ER.

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#109
post #27

The number of new physicians in the US are restricted because you need to go through residency and the number of residency slots are limited because they have to be funded by Medicare (why ?). There's a huge lobby (AMA) to keep it that way, to ensure their members salaries remain high. PAs and NPs don't have the same restriction so hospital systems are pushing to have them handle office visits as much as possible. Th…

AMA stopped lobbying for that around ten years ago

Yeah, and America stopped fighting the Axis Powers. There's a reason we stopped.

Re: A fourth of U.S. health visits now delivered by non-physicians

#110
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent occurrence I will share related to this was having to convince my doctor that I had Lyme disease. I Googled the symptoms, saw the trademark bullseye, and of course concluded that I had Lyme disease. It was right where I got the tick bite, 8 weeks later. My doctor refused to believe me. He told me to see a dermatologist about it, thinking it was some skin rash, even though it was exactly where the tick had bi…

You have a point but need to drop the identity politics bullshit. Since when are women "underserved"? Men are far more likely to "tough it out" i.e. refuse to see a doctor when they have symptoms of illness, so by your logic they are the "underserved minority" in terms of gender. Claiming women are disadvantaged in literally everything ever is a groundless cliché. The racial angle may be less false (though not for th…

https://physicians.dukehealth.org/articles/recognizing-addre...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2825679/?itid=l...

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r...

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